Kishore Mahbubani, former UN Security Council president and Asia Research Institute fellow, says Africa faces a “cruel” economic future in the next decades, as the same nations that exploited Africa's resources for wealth are becoming increasingly protectionist.
However, the continent could learn from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), an economic block of 10 Southeast Asian economies: Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, Malaysia and Cambodia.
The grouping, established in 1967, was instrumental in turning its member states from low-income economies to a combined GDP of $3.6-trillion (R64.07-trillion) in 2022, enough to make the bloc the fifth largest economy globally.
Mahbubani said for Africa, replicating this model has gone from possible to critical.
He was speaking at the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) AGM in Abuja, Nigeria, on Thursday. His address comes amid trade fragmentation, protectionism and geopolitical tensions punctuated by war in Ukraine and the Middle East and US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“In where we go from here and what the prospects are, I emphasise the cruel world. We haven’t seen the sharper edges of the geopolitical competition that is coming, partly because the US has been trying to focus on China.”
Africa needed to continue its efforts through the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to convert Africa into the largest free-trade area in the world and leverage its economies’ production and consumption bases of lifting intra-Africa trade to 25% by 2040.
EU “incompetence” allowed the war in Ukraine to occur when it could have been avoided. He said for reasons he did not understand, conditions in the Middle East continued to worsen. However, it was important for Africa to remain focused as the competition for economic supremacy between the US and China continues.
“It’s important to develop substantive ties with the US and China. Over the years, the US has invested more in Asean economies than it has in China, Japan and India. China’s economy is much larger than the Asean's.”
The vaccine nationalism, where developed economies refused to share Covid-19 vaccines with emerging and poor economies, was another example of the “cruelty” that pervaded the global economic hierarchy, though China and India shared vaccine doses at the height of the pandemic.
The slowdown in growth stems from rising global uncertainties, notably the abrupt escalation of trade tensions since early 2025
— Kishore Mahbubani, former UN Security Council president and Asia Research Institute fellow
“One of the tragedies that hit the EU was Brexit. It was a big disaster for the EU and an even bigger disaster for the UK. Now the Asean is different, because everyone is flexible. If we had an issue such as Brexit [with a member] we would say: ‘why don’t you take a holiday and come back when you feel better?’ It is flexible.”
The Asean free-trade area was initially met with trepidation but eventually paved the way for a network of free-trade agreements between the Asean and other regions of the world. The Asean went from an organisation suspicious of free-trade agreements to becoming the founding institution of the world’s largest operating free-trade agreement.
Africa had ample opportunity to learn from the successes and failures of previous economic regions and superpowers and apply their approach to its own strategic, resources and skills endowments, he said.
“Asia must send a thank-you note to Japan, because when Japan succeeded it gave hope to fellow Asian nations that 'we can also succeed'. The first piece of advice I would give is: if you look around in Africa, there are lots of success stories — and never try to reinvent the wheel.”
At the Afreximbank AGM the bank launched the 2025 Africa Trade Report, which found that in 2024 global output expanded by a modest 3.3% and is projected to slow to 2.8% in 2025, which is down from an earlier forecast of 3.3% and well below the 2000-2019 average of 3.7%.
“The slowdown in growth stems from rising global uncertainties, notably the abrupt escalation of trade tensions since early 2025. According to the IMF, the effective US tariff rate surged to 14.5%, the highest in nearly a century, after new tariff announcements in April.”
The report said these developments have contributed to negative supply shock, increased market volatility and weakened multilateral co-operation — further undermining global resilience.
• Magubane was invited to the AGM as a guest of Afreximbank.
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